Clementine Candle

0 Posted by - May 23, 2012 - DIY & Crafts, Home Decor

Apartment Therapy is one of those blogs I read because I hate myself. No, really. I know that when I go read it, I’m going to feel horribly inadequate about my bigger-than-an-apartment house and the fact that all those cute little Manhattan closets-cum-apartments are actually way cuter than my sprawling suburban 2-story. I do not have raw industrial walls, nor do I have any multi-functional spaces. Hell, I have three full bathrooms, people. I could poop in a different toilet for three days in a row and never leave my house. My house is not a tiny little nest where I can decorate every surface because there are only 5 square feet of actual surface to decorate.

Buuuut, now and then I see something on Apartment Therapy that I think I might be able to handle. Like a clementine candle.

Image via Gramkin Paper Studio

I don’t know why, but the idea of making a candle out of a cute, sweet little clementine is kind of fascinating. I’m not the only one who thinks so. This project has been repinned like a hojillion times.

Unfortunately, it is not clementine season where I live. It is navel orange season. They’re both orange citrus fruits, though, so I gave it a go.

I managed to get the peels apart without much trouble.

But then I couldn’t really decide which end should be the wick end and which end should be the chimney end. I contemplated this for a while… Then I decided this side should be the chimney. And then I played with the hole.

You’re supposed to fill up the wick end with some kind of vegetable oil or olive oil or something, but, um, I didn’t have any. I did have some oil, though.

Next step? Fire. Well, not immediate next step. I took a 2-minute long video of me trying to light the damn thing. I started rolling because I was pretty sure the whole thing would ignite the minute the flame touched the popcorn oil, but not so. The 2-minute long video features me trying to light the oil-filled orange over and over and over, all while battling a monster case of the hiccups. (I was a little drunk.) Which is why I’m not posting the video. Really, the only highlights are when the camera shakes because I hiccup while holding a flaming butane lighter against a full cup of popcorn oil. And nothing happens. It’s bizzaro land. I should have 3rd degree burns and no eyebrows right now.

Eventually, it lit. For like a second.

It took me another 16 or 20 tries to get a flame that lasted longer than 3 seconds, but it eventually took. And I had a clementine, er, well, navel orange candle. Just like on Apartment Therapy. Take that, snotty cute apartment dwellers.

I’m not really sure why I wanted one in the first place, though. It was a lot of work and it kind of smelled bad. Turns out that when you burn an orange, it doesn’t smell like orange. It smells like burning. Hm. Who knew?

 

47 Comments

  • Lauren May 24, 2012 - 1:13 pm Reply

    Not bad! In fact, this might be the least horrendous pintested project on the site! Add some snotty lens filters, and it’d look just like Apartment Therapy’s version.

  • Michelle May 24, 2012 - 2:37 pm Reply

    Did it at least smell like burnt orange? Or maybe burnt popcorn? Although burnt popcorn is worse than just burned to me.

    I think yours is better than theirs anyway. Probably it’s the sticker.

    • Pintester May 24, 2012 - 4:08 pm Reply

      “Probably it’s the sticker.” You are killing me Michelle. Like 90% of the benefit of having this blog is reading comments like that. I’m laughing my ass off (but not literally– that would be gross).

      • Michelle May 24, 2012 - 8:30 pm Reply

        That would be gross…yet handy. I could be really skinny if I could laugh parts of my body off.

        • Sara Benitez June 26, 2012 - 1:21 pm Reply

          or like a Leper. 🙂

  • inkgrrl May 25, 2012 - 5:29 pm Reply

    This is proof that all the best ‘speriments are done after imbibing boozamahol.

  • mae June 23, 2012 - 2:06 am Reply

    i say try a lemon, in the pic it looks like a lemon 😀

    • Sarah June 24, 2012 - 12:04 pm Reply

      I tried this one because I had tons of oranges that I wasn’t going to eat before they went bad. You’re right that it takes forever to light & to get it to stay lit for more than 3 seconds & that it doesn’t smell good at all. I also had a problem with burning the “lid”.

  • Anonyvox June 24, 2012 - 7:08 pm Reply

    I had the same problems. It was a mother to light, and it was stinky. Very not festive.

  • Allison June 25, 2012 - 3:15 pm Reply

    OMG I love the dialogue.. this will forever be my favourite website…

  • Ashley June 25, 2012 - 6:56 pm Reply

    I’m laughing so hard, I’m crying! You’re hilarious!!

  • Tina MacKinnon June 26, 2012 - 4:00 am Reply

    It’s not the sticker, it’s the artfully arranged orange guts that turn me on. Bow chicka wow-wow.

  • Sharon Cataldo June 26, 2012 - 9:56 am Reply

    Love this… I’m one of those many idiots who thought it looked charming… and went right out and actually managed to find clementines at my local supermarket… never seen any there before or since (strange forces at work I think), bought two and popped them in the fridge with strict instructions to the family not to eat them… and promptly forgot about them until I threw out the poor withered things about 2 months later in a fridge blitz.

  • Alicia Lee June 26, 2012 - 10:54 am Reply

    I think this one would be especially great if you have loads of cats and/or kids.
    Oh look! A rolling ball of fire blazing through the kitchen! Mmmmm citrusy fire. Thanks Pinterest!

  • Pintrest Tester | June 27, 2012 - 8:47 pm Reply
  • Caroline July 3, 2012 - 11:12 am Reply

    Love the sticker and the popcorn oil bottle in the background!

  • shava July 3, 2012 - 6:47 pm Reply

    i couldnt get my shittin candle to light. gr.

  • KatieGlenn July 3, 2012 - 7:14 pm Reply

    I’ve tried that pin four times and haven’t been able to get the thing to light once! I used a tangelo, two oranges, and a clemintine; olive oil and vegetable oil; matches and a lighter. A couple charred, but not one of four ever lit. :/

    • asphyxia July 5, 2012 - 11:12 pm Reply

       @KatieGlenn it works best if the inside of the orange is completely dry. but failing that, it can take a good 5 mins of trying to light it and 2 lighters (i melted my friends from trying to get my first “candle” lit)

  • favoritehate July 4, 2012 - 1:10 am Reply

    the first time i tried this it was lit for four hours and my friends were impressed. it smelled amazing and i used a cookie cutter star so that it let out more light on the top part. i used a fairly large orange, as well as a lemon. it was great in the backyard and kept bugs away.
     
    maybe you just fail at crafting.

    • missmarker July 24, 2012 - 3:41 pm Reply

      Wow, bitch much??

    • RoseBella July 24, 2012 - 9:46 pm Reply

      i think your right!! 😉

  • AnnaMarie July 4, 2012 - 9:11 pm Reply

    I love that you left the sticker on your orange. Your blog is hilarious. So are the commenters who say, “Hmm, it worked for me!”

  • Rilla July 4, 2012 - 9:22 pm Reply

    I’ve been dying to know if this actually works and thanks to you I now know. No. LOVE your blog. I have a board called Butt Ugly that you might find mildly amusing. Apparently we speak the same snark. http://pinterest.com/rillasvilla/butt-ugly/

  • most hilarious blog…ever « swampdispatches July 5, 2012 - 4:15 pm Reply

    […] http://pintester.com/2012/05/clementine-candle/ Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. « Previous post […]

  • Notjustrocks July 10, 2012 - 12:21 pm Reply

    I love this post, really made me laugh.

  • SwissyMissy July 11, 2012 - 7:58 am Reply

    Great post but if you cook how can you not have Olive oil or any oil except popcorn oil on hand in your kitchen?
     

  • SarahSinofsky July 18, 2012 - 10:21 pm Reply

    I tried this as well.  Twas an epic fail, and a waste of oil and time. Womp womp.

  • katy326 August 7, 2012 - 1:21 am Reply

    Maybe she was out of oil at the time and forgot to get some on the orange shopping trip. Happens to me all the time.

  • ballpointbow August 9, 2012 - 8:27 am Reply

     Yeah, this is really rude. Also really unnecessary. If it worked for you, great! Put the story in the cool story bin. 

  • katy326 August 9, 2012 - 9:07 am Reply

    I tried this the other day but couldn’t get mine lit. I held a lighter to it for more than 5 min. and nothing. I even put alcohol on the wick and still no luck. =/ oh and I got olive oil all over my counter because there was a hole in the orange. This was a pintastrophy.

  • musingsfromthecorner August 12, 2012 - 9:15 pm Reply
  • kaleidoscope August 18, 2012 - 9:16 pm Reply

    You made a candle from an orange, rather than just buying a candle. Good for you; you clearly win at life.

  • roastytoastyroo September 12, 2012 - 1:14 pm Reply

    I think my favorite part is that you left the sticker on the orange and didn’t bother to cut any holes in it haha Thank you for saving me from another nonfunctional pin

  • Allyson September 24, 2012 - 5:22 pm Reply

    i’m at work and i’m having a hard time containing my laughter
    smells like burning.  aaaahahhaha

  • SamanthaChimiHowes November 15, 2012 - 9:36 am Reply

    HILARIOUS! Good call keeping the sticker on, it gives the candle some pizazz! LOL @ smells like burning…

  • ElizabethHirdler November 21, 2012 - 4:47 am Reply

    I tried it…but its a pathetic excuse for a flame. I am afraid to put the lid on and snuff out the “candle”…

  • cash for damaged cars December 14, 2012 - 9:00 am Reply

    nice or great post

  • Connecticut December 15, 2012 - 12:50 pm Reply

    @Notjustrocks Yes you are right.

  • Kbrooke December 30, 2012 - 5:47 pm Reply

    No offense or anything, I love your blog. Really, I do. But don’t you think that if you tried to use exactly what it told you to use instead of grabbing ransom shit, you’d have a little more luck? I know some pins are obvious fails waiting to happen. But, really put some effort in it. Just throwing that out there!

    • Christina Jacobs July 25, 2013 - 11:03 pm Reply

      This is a humor blog. If you want to read a blog about craft projects working out, you’re on the wrong blog.

  • George Burch January 12, 2013 - 1:26 am Reply

    I can’t believe you said “played with a hole!” You may be one of my people!

  • mlrasnick January 12, 2013 - 7:14 pm Reply

    That’s a stupid craft and I don’t know why you would even WANT to do that one. PS I’m notorious for not following directions, estimating instead of measuring, and making substitutions. I totally get it. Mine don’t turn out as sucky as yours though. And why are the Martha Stewarts of the world bashing you? She was often inebriated too, but had better hand-eye coordination. Geesh

  • Petrichor May 8, 2013 - 5:10 am Reply

    I’ve tried this two or three times, and was only able to get to to work once. Of course, it was my first attempt that worked, thus instilling in me a false sense of achievement and skill. -.-‘ You definitely need to let them dry out a bit before even ATTEMPTING to pour in oil and set fire to it. Otherwise you’re just left with a greasy orange half and a deep sense of failure.

  • addictedduringwork June 5, 2013 - 4:31 pm Reply

    I love reading these, and honestly, they make the 8 hour work day pass pretty nicely (going into the last 25 minutes and still not bored.) but I’d like to point out that I was sadly disappointed when it was pinned a “hojillion” times, and not a fucktillion. Just sayin.

  • Sparks Fly: Pintester Lights Shit on Fire | Pintester May 23, 2014 - 12:56 pm Reply

    […] Clementine candle – I still love Apartment Therapy, even though this turned out like […]

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